Phil Booth

After Mom died we went into her desk, and we found a program for Dad’s retirement dinner, which neither of us had ever laid eyes on before this day. It described a stranger, a larger than life man with no kids whom we did not know.
He was at his most charming and generous when around new acquaintances, those he wanted to impress, and people in crisis–whenever he could make a grand gesture or come to the rescue. He was at his worst when it came to day-to-day relationships, especially with those he saw as subordinates–not just secretaries, retail clerks, women drivers, and girls over the age of five,, but also his wife (my mother) and his children.
I do not know now if he loved us kids, in his way, but I grew up knowing we weren’t important enough to impress. He treated my mother, myself, and my siblings as he would his least-capable employees (I wish I were kidding). Our jobs were to be his silent, unseen Children. And just as he rated his employees’ performance at work, so he did at home.
I grew up under a steady stream of belittling comments about my hair, my skin, my posture, the things I liked, my shyness and lack of social skills. He was the sort of father who took silent pleasure in defeating his own children. He loved to set us up to fail at something we didn’t know how to do, and then complain of our ignorance–somehow, we were just supposed to know how, and if we didn’t we were stupid.
If his comments hurt? That was our fault. We needed to “stop being so sensitive.”
And the generosity he so freely extended to other people rarely was extended to us., He used to give advice and encouragement to the children of his friends, or young co-workers, or the neighbors’ son, playing a supportive mentor role to them that he never played with us (because somehow we were stupid if we needed advice, but these other people’s kids weren’t). It always felt like other people got all the best of him, while we watched and hoped for a few stray crumbs.
What’s important here is that only after Mom died did he change. I believe he was just starting to get to like me a little. Then he died. Without hearing the dismissive or abrupt tone in his voice, or the mean edge in his voice when he warned of us something stupid we were about to do or had already done. He never acknowledged he hurt us. We didn’t fit his self-image, so we didn’t exist; we were not a part of him. We were invisible when it came to being a family.
There was no acknowledgement of how deeply unhappy each one of us was–and we obviously were–or that he and she both played a crucial role in making us so unhappy.
My father would have been perfectly charming toward anyone who wanted to interview him. A psychiatrist, for example. He’d come across as intelligent, perceptive, and thoughtful. And he would be mystified, unable to fathom, why his daughters were damaged
My father didn’t hit or molest me; he worked hard to have a nice home and buy cigarettes and gin; he wasn’t a falling down drunk; my father didn’t beat me ; there was no severe, obvious abuse. But rather than beating me down with a belt, he chose to slice at me, a litle at a time. Those countless small, stinging cuts added up.
You don’t know what’s good, you don’t know what you like, that music
stinks, turn out your light, get your hair out of your eyes sit up straight, gimme that you don’t know how to do it, no one wants to work, little kids little problems, big kids big problems, “problem child” , dumb broads, get outa the Way Grand-Maw……. Wherz my hammer goddam it,

These are the words I remember. It shouldn’t be that way.